The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-12-15

What is true of Chester County is
measurably true of every other county
in the State, and of all the cotton and
tobacco States as we'll. How can We
expect an increase of our population by
immigration when we havn't food
enough to supply tb already here?
How can we expect to add to our home
comforts, to the better education of our
children, the improvement of our live
stock, the fertilization and enhancement
of the value of our land, when the money
that should be appropriated to these
objects is sent off to other States to buy
corn and oats and bacon, -four, rye,
barley, and even butter, and to pay
consuming interest and freight on them?
How can we expect our highways to be
improved, our homes beauti6ed, and
churches and school houses properly
sustained, when We devote two,thirds or
more of our time to the planting, culti'
vatipg, gathering and marketing of our
cotton crop? And when all this is done,
we find ourselves at the mercy of a small
band of spectators and gamblers in
Liverpool and New York, who regulate
the price to suit themselves. Will we
never learn sense from experience, or
otherwise? 1t appears to me we are
long time about it.
Various remedies have been suggested,
numerous opinions have been expressed
by great number Of persons to correct
the defects of our agricultural system.
Some have recommended an agricultural
college as a panacea for many of the
evils to which we have fallen heir others
industrial schools; others again a refor.
ms ION of the State department of agri-
culture, and others a change in our
statute law. There may be good in all
these particulars, but in my judgment
bigger corn, wheat and oats fields, and
more home made bacon, and more milk
and butter and potatoes and peas will
cure the evils more speedily than all the
agricultural colleges and industrial
schools you could build, and than all the
laws you could pass in lifetime. Keep
your corn cribs and smoke.houses full of
the homemade product, and I will build
you all the colleges and industrial schools
ycu want, and you will not feel the tax
it will take to do it.
I am in favor of an agricultural college
and industrial schools, just as many as
the taxpayers are willing to pay for, and
will pay my share of the taxes without a
murmur, but the teachers and pupils
can't live on brick walls and mortar, and
plank fences and pine tops. We must
first make something to feed them
something more than will support an
industrious goat or razor back hog.
Possibly, agricultural colleges and
industrial schools will conduce to better
methods of farming. If conducted on
correct principles, no doubt they will, but
the food question is upon us, and ought
to be solved favorably without delay.
It has been sometime since these cen.
sus tables were prepared-seven years
and trust an enumeration taken now
would make better showing for US; l
believe it would. And 7 am satisfied
that men in Chester County and else.
where who have abandoned horseback
farming or planting from the front piazza,
and have adopted sensible methods, have
improved their conditions and are pros
porous.
Imust not be understood IS opposed to
planting cot n. I have said, over and
over again, On other occasions, that it is
the best market crop in the world, and I
believe it is. 1 mean by market crop the
surplus crop that can be spared for sale.
I deprecate the planting of cotton to the
exclusion of food crops. Where this
practice has been abandoned farmers are
doing we'll and making money.
Another great evil is, that we have in
our agricultural population SO many
idlers-so many consumers and compare.
lively 80 few producers. 1t is not an
uncommon thing to see family of ten
or twelve persons to be supported from
the farm, and not more than three or four
workers. The other six or seven idliDg
or something worse, preying upon their
neighDors for something to eat. You
find this in no other country but the
South-that have visited-and I think
is largely due here to our vicious system
of tenating lands. I confess that | can
not suggest a remedy for this evil, unless
it be by thinning out process, of emmi-
grafton by this idler class to other
localities where labor is not so abundant,
or where they would be compelled to
work for living.
Now, gentlemen, have stated that if
the farm products of your county were
distributed per capita by the enumeration
Of the census of 1880, each person would
receive SIS in money, u bushels of wheat
and Is bushels of corn. 1t must not be
forgotten that that enumeration was
made seven years ago. What will the
census to be taken two years hence show :?
l trust and believe it will show won.
derful and gratifying improvement on
these figures. 1t cannot, of course, be
deduced from these facts that everybody
engaged in farming received but this
proportion. Nor do they show that the
men who were actively engaged in farm